When you look at a photo, what are you looking at? Composition? Lighting? Color grading? With your knowledge and expertise, you look at certain things with more intent than others, but are you seeing the whole picture?
I recall reading an interview years ago in which Steve McCurry — a master at assembling powerfully wrought imagery — claimed not to think about composition. I was dumbfounded, even more so when I realized he was telling the truth.
The wonderful thing about trees is that every single one is unique in texture, shape, curvature, structure, setting, and more, making them excellent subjects for landscape photographers. This excellent tutorial will show you how to create eye-catching photos of trees.
There are many smart tools and life hacks out there, which aim at making us more efficient in our work and life. The following method has been inspired by a former president of the U.S.
As I've gotten older, one thing I've learned is that it's often easier and quicker to learn from someone else who has "been there and done that" than it is to learn by trial and error on your own. In this video, Serge Ramelli interviews Joel Grimes about what it takes to be a successful photographer.
Whether you love watches, rings, or everything in between, as a photographer, you're going to want to take a picture of them at some point. What might seem straightforward can actually prove rather tricky.
With extreme wide-angle lenses on the market from all the major players now that don't accept screw-in filters, filter manufacturers have stepped up their offerings with larger filter holders and dedicated attachment rings. One such offering is Haida's M15 Magnetic Filter Holder.
There are a ton of different easy ways to create a video time-lapse. Today, I will teach you the hardest and most time-consuming method that professionals are currently using to get the best results possible.
If you are doing any business or marketing on Instagram, then at some point, you have been annoyed that you can only put one link on your profile. For a lot of users and most photographers, the ultimate goal is to drive traffic from Instagram to your website/portfolio.
Digital photography has changed the way we take pictures. We care able to shoot, and shoot, and never run out of storage space. But at the other hand, it did not change the way we treat all those photos. So I wonder: what are you doing with all the photos you took over the last year?
If you are new to Photoshop, the Pen Tool can be a bit difficult to master. Nevertheless, it is a tremendously useful tool, and it is well worth taking the time to learn how to use it. This helpful tutorial will show you how to get started with it.
When you think of ND filters, you probably think of 3-stop or 6-stop filters or maybe even a 10-stop if you really want to go extreme. But what about a 16-stop filter? This fun video shows what it's like working with such an insane filter.
During the past decade, the world economy has experienced steady, gradual expansion. But what goes up must come down, and the question photographers are wise to consider is: "how will the next recession affect me?"
When I received the RAVPower FileHub my first thought was "This thing is light. It can't be what it says it is." and boy was I wrong. While it definitely is not perfect, the RAVPower FileHub is an extremely versatile, handy, device for those that like to travel light.
Midday sun can be very difficult to work with, but that does not mean you can't get great images during the middle of the day. This helpful video will show you how to take better landscape photos when dealing with midday sun.
Sometimes it’s fun to set yourself a challenge, maybe shooting with limited gear or with a very quick turnaround. On this occasion, I had no choice. The shoot was conceived and captured in under fifteen minutes, and the images were edited and submitted less than half an hour later. Here’s how it came about.
It is pretty amazing just how much you can accomplish in post-processing software nowadays, but there is something particularly satisfying about creating an image that looks like it took lots of Photoshop work entirely in camera. This excellent video tutorial will show you how to recreate this fascinating day and night image all in camera.
Gonzalo Amat, who’s up for an Emmy for his work on Amazon’s Man in the High Castle, tells us the steps he takes to make a scene stand out in darkness.
As a landscape photographer and videographer, here is a detailed look at my gear list, my preferences, and the reasons behind my acquisitions.
Color grading is one of the final and most important steps to giving any image a really professional touch. This helpful video tutorial will show you everything you need to know about color grading using the Color Balance tool in Photoshop.
Some behind the scenes videos of shoots you just have to stop what you're doing, and watch.
The exposure triangle claims to explain the relationship between shutter speed, aperture, and ISO. At first glance, it looks like a useful diagram, until you realize that it’s not all what it's cracked up to be.
The Fstoppers community is brimming with creative vision and talent. Every day, we comb through your work, looking for images to feature as the Photo of the Day or simply to admire your creativity and technical prowess. In 2019, we're featuring a new photographer every month, whose portfolio represents both stellar photographic achievement and a high level of involvement within the Fstoppers community.
The mirrorless wars have been raging for several years now, with Sony going all in with its Alpha line-up of full-frame mirrorless cameras, but should you make the switch? Let’s talk about why you need to be shooting Sony mirrorless cameras and to ditch the Canikon cameras of olde.
Sex and stripping seem to go hand in hand, but in this edition of the A to Z of photography, I cover the acclaimed work of fashion photographer Bob Carlos Clark, "Shooting Sex" and then delve into the technical details of the photo finish.
Photography is a dream job for many, and everyone thinks we’re so lucky to do it. To that extent, they also all “would love to get more into photography.” While we get pretty good at sifting out which of our friends are actually serious about that goal, here are a few suggestions for how to get over the biggest barrier to entry by starting with film.
Whether you're an amateur or a new professional, money from photography will likely be on your mind. This video follows a photographer as he goes out and tries to do just that. (Warning: some strong language.)
I've watched with interest as videographers use external small monitors attached to their DSLR or mirrorless cameras. I could see the advantages: the larger screen, the ability to see vectorscopes, histograms, and the variety of focus tools available. At the same time, I wondered if a monitor would enhance my landscape and nighttime photography, so I took the plunge, and here are my findings.
Unless you're a photojournalist, the chances are low that your photos will ever go viral. If you're trying to go viral, you'll probably be prepared ahead of time. If you just so happen to be in the right place at the right time, you may not be prepared for what happens when your photos go viral.
There is a veritable plethora of ways to edit any image, and each method has its own benefits and drawbacks. This interesting videos discusses why one photographer chose to stop editing using sliders, instead relying solely on local adjustments.
If you’ve been following my recent articles, you’ll know that I’ve been on an umbrella modifier trend. I just love how portable and easy to set up they are.
Achieving mastery of a craft takes lots of time and patience. Photography's most devoted practitioners pursue the elusive status of mastery one shoot at a time, one shot at a time, over many years. It’s not easy.
Besides shooting cars or architecture, light painting can also be useful when you want to achieve creative results without spending lots of money.
Are you thinking of trying out portrait photography and want to get some insight as to exactly what you need to create beautiful portraits without a lot of trial and error? Read on for some tried and true suggestions that will get you started without all the hit-and-miss experimentation.
This is a look at how this affordable home security cam can be used for increasing security of your gear while traveling on assignment. Even though it was never designed for this purpose, unlike a lot of other options on the market the Wyze Cam has just the right features to make it possible.
When you're new to working with artificial light, the entire world can feel quite confusing and a bit overwhelming. This helpful video goes over 10 things a seasoned photographer wishes he had known before he started dabbling with strobes.
White balance is drilled into our head as a particularly technical thing to adjust in our photography and not really something we can use creatively beyond "Warmer or cooler" but there are so many creative possibilities out there.
This past week I passed the one year mark of shutting down my old Instagram when it was about to hit a new milestone, and starting from absolute scratch. Why did I do this? Was it a good idea? Let's dive in and find out.
It really doesn't matter if you make excellent images that make your clients look their best, or that they're using your creative brain and technical mastery to sell their product. Clients deserve massive discounts, and, sometimes you just need to give them a load of images for free because they feel that they did you a favor that one time — conveniently forgetting all the other free and massively discounted commercial images you gave them.
Recently, I teamed up with Ted Linczak to discuss a simple source of revenue that many wedding photographers fail to utilize well: wedding albums. Ted adds tens of thousands of dollars to his business every year with a few simple workflow and sales techniques. In this video, he shares some of his tips.
Colored lighting gels can take the illumination in your images from standard to outstanding by adding color for a touch of interest and depth. And while nothing can create that look quite like the real thing, you can fake an interesting colored gel effect for your images using some simple tricks in Photoshop.
When photographer Felix Renaud first discovered photography, a world of possibilities opened to him. With his background of drawing and cinema, he is drawn towards treating his images as if they were drawn from a film or inspired by a painting. He enjoys creating the ambiance and characters for his images.
Incorporating a body of water into a landscape photo is one of the best ways to add visual interest, create a flow that leads the viewer's eye across the image, and drastically alter the mood you're trying to create. This excellent video will give you seven tips to improve your seascape images.
There is no doubt that the wide-angle zoom lens is the most popular for landscape photography and is my go-to lens in most of my work. It is however, not necessarily the easiest lens to use as it takes in a lot of the landscape.
Making money in photography is hard — even harder when companies ask you to do work for free that they are profiting off of, and we say yes for the exposure/connections.
An easy lighting setup for any photographer to have in their arsenal that creates a highly sought-after look would have to be three point lighting. It’s classic, it’s easy, and you can achieve several highly stylized looks in only mere seconds by moving a light or two.
Dedicated monolights are certainly highly useful for portrait work, but they're also relatively expensive and rather bulky. However, almost every photographer owns a speedlight, and you might wonder if you can use it in place of a monolight for on-location portrait work. This great video shows you the benefits and drawbacks of shooting with a speedlight outside.
Getting started as a professional photographer is a daunting task. Psychologically, it is a huge leap from taking photographs for fun to getting paid for a photograph (or photographs).
One of the most fundamental yet impactful decisions you can make regarding the post-processing of a photograph is whether to render it in color or in black and white. The choice of which is not always clear for a given image, however, but this great video seeks to provide some guidelines for choosing between the two.
Portrait photography can be a tricky genre full of nuance, and posing can be one of the most difficult aspects. This helpful video will show you a variety of portrait poses and tricks and tips to get the most out of your subjects and to produce better images.
![Fstoppers Photographer of the Month (July 2019): Dasha and Mari K. [NSFW]](https://cdn.fstoppers.com/styles/med-16-9/s3/lead/2019/07/93df4c824ae0b4c902b82b84a60de3e9.jpg)
